1999
Uncle Wally's Adventures 2: Bears
by Uncle Wally
Well, bears will be bears. . .but I sure wish they wouldn't do it on MY time.
Now, I've heard all kinds of bear stories -- lots of 'em. I always figured if you believed even half of 'em, then we had some serious over-achievers in the raid-and-pillage field right here in the Boundary Waters alone. So I never believed ANY of 'em. And the bears left me pretty much alone. But last summer changed all that. When I took my brother and his kids to the BWCAW last August, my luck with bears finally ran out.
Seemed like a nice trip to start with. No ominous omens. No mishaps. We just waltzed our way along the Canadian border, takin' our time and enjoyin' ourselves. In fact, it was perfect: the weather was nice, the bugs scarce, the company good. Maybe that was it. It was TOO perfect and had to be paid for in the end.
Anyway. . .making our way to our last campsite on Daniels Lake, we found ourselves trying to overcome, if not absolutely defy, gravity on the Stairway Portage. The girls were happy: they thought climbing up all those stairs past a pretty waterfall was WAY nicer than goin' out the other end of Rose Lake over a 524-rod portage. They skipped ahead with their packs, sharing a bag of Cheezy Doritos to sustain themselves. Don't know how that bag of fragile fried snacks had survived either the rigors of back-country travel or two voracious appetites, but there it was and they were enjoying it. Paul and I brought up the rear at a more stately, middle-aged pace. Paul was holding forth on his theory of how clever bears are. He said they'd even learned how to frighten people into dropping their packs by leaping out of the trailside shrubbery and snarling at them until they ran off, leaving a canvas treasure trove of gorp and Power Bars behind them. I was shakin' my head and thinkin' my baby brother had been livin' in Chicago too long if he had started equating nice portage trails with dark alleys and bears with muggers. Then suddenly, our reverie was broken by two, loudly excited girls running back down the portage trail toward us.
"There's a BEAR up there . . . and he's eating our Doritos!" they cried, somewhere between terror and delight.
"Yeah, right," I grunted, without breaking pace. "Don't you know you're not supposed to RUN from bears?"
"No, REALLY, Uncle Wally. There's a great, big, black bear up there where the trails cross and he wouldn't let us by and then he started to, like, follow us and everything . . . until we dropped the Doritos and ran."
"Ah, c'mon!" I grunted, in cynical disbelief. "I betcha I'm the closest thing to a bear anywhere around here." At this, Shelly, with all the offended dignity a thirteen-year-old could muster, folded her arms across her chest, jutted out her chin, and challenged me to "Go see for yourself!" Her little sister, Mandy, just giggled and said, "You do look a little like him, Uncle Wally!"
I didn't see the resemblance when I came eyeball to eyeball with the bear in another few rods, except that we both looked kinda surprised. "Git outta here!" I growled, waving my arms as if I were trying to shoo off some stray dog. This may (or may not) have impressed my nieces. But the bear merely looked down its pasteurized, processed, cheese food powdered snout and finished its snack before lumbering off into the woods.
So, if bears are so darned smart, how come they can't read the label and figure out there's not a darned thing that's good for 'em in a bag of junk food? Well, I guess maybe it's because it's hard to digest all those nutrition facts when you've already eaten the label they're printed on. Besides, we all know that junk food creates its own cravings. Which is probably why the bear came back for more later on that night.
Now, for some reason or other, we were a little more careful than usual when we hung the food pack after dinner. The bear rope was strung between two trees as high as a grown man could throw a rock. (That would be a grown man without an American or National League contract, of course.) But, you know how it is: a rope that looks taut and admirably far off the ground when it is first tied looks barely adequate once stretched under the weight of a food pack. Then the night gets damp and the ropes start to stretch and then . . .
That, of course, was when the bear came back, looking for seconds on Cheezy Doritos. By then the bear rope had stretched enough to bring the food pack down tantalizingly close to paw's reach for a tall bear. And this tall bear was still hungry. And determined. It kept reaching up and slapping at the pack, making it swing out on the rope. All that critter needed was a blindfold, a stick, and a paper hat to make it look just like a kid trying to break the pinata at a birthday party. And it didn't give a sniff how much noise we made, how many pots we banged, or how many rocks we threw. It probably just figured it was missin' out on Musical Chairs. And it didn't care. It was not a bit like the bear in the Forest Service clean camping video that runs off as soon as someone looks cross-eyed at it. (That bear is a card-carrying member of the Actor's Guild and knows all its cues.) So there wasn't much for us to do except watch the show.
Well, persistence paid off. Eventually all that swingin' and swayin' loosened up the ropes enough for that bear to catch hold of both sides of the pack. It sorta hopped up and gave that pack a big bear hug, throwing its considerable weight in with the ever-reliable force of gravity and brought the whole thing down. It was a good thing we were leavin' the next day anyway.
So, I guess there's just no puttin' off a hungry bear with a salt craving and Cheezy Doritos on its breath. But you really shouldn't feed the bears, if you can help it. 'Cause they ARE smart. Give 'em a taste of life in the fast food lane and next thing ya know, they'll be stealin' your keys, takin' your car in to the nearest drive-thru for a mcburger, and drivin' off without payin'. Then where will you be? The police'll have a description of YOUR vehicle and YOUR license plate number. And if you're REALLY unlucky, like Uncle Wally, you MAY even resemble the description of the driver!
Well, 'til next time, keep your paddle wet. And keep in touch. Drop me a line c/o Mickey McBride, 8191 Belden Blvd., Cottage Grove MN 55106 OR mickeymcb@worldnet. att.net. If you haven't liked any of the other topics I've tossed out for general consideration, how about telling me all about some canoe camping recipe that didn't turn out QUITE like you expected? Remember, Uncle Wally promises to 1) tell the truth so no one would ever believe it anyhow and 2) never reveal your true identity to anyone, not even the SPCA.
